


Unheard, Unspoken

by heroictype (swanreaper)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Cecil is Mostly Human, Cecil is Roughly Psychic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 15:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6334213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanreaper/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is only so much space in the human brain. If you try to fit an entire town in there, sometimes, things are going to break down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Scientist

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's this. It is about Carlos and Cecil, learning about each other. It is about Cecil's connection to Night Vale in the most literal sense, based in an oddly specific headcanon. It is about what happens when you are something you aren't, and when people love you, anyway.
> 
> Warnings for lots of dissociation and anxiety things, for lack of a better way to put it.

The first time Cecil’s voice did not come on the radio, Carlos did not worry too much about it.

They were not dating yet, and he had in front of him an unidentifiable, squirming thing, held in place by a careful pair of tongs. He didn’t really have time to think about overly affectionate radio hosts or the buzzing distortion that replaced them with the simple words, “Today’s regular program has been canceled. Please enjoy this two-hour special on bloodsucking bees today.”

 _Hmm. Bloodsucking bees. I wonder…_ He thought, but he would not start the apiology project until later.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t worry at all. It was Night Vale, after all. It was dangerous. He did wonder, for a moment, if maybe he wouldn’t hear Cecil again. That would have been unfortunate, from a scientific perspective. He did have a nice voice, and he was a fellow human being, after all. 

* * *

 The second time Cecil’s voice did not come on the radio, Carlos worried more. He worried enough that he looked up from a beaker of brightly colored liquid over to the radio and said, “Cecil?”

As if the radio were a two-way communication device. He could have made it one, and tried to reach the station on the other end, to find out what was going on. He also had a cell phone. He sent Cecil a text, one that fit into the category of “personal.”

_Hey, are you alright?_

He did not receive a reply, but when Carlos arrived at the restaurant that evening, Cecil was waiting for him. He repeated his question to the man’s face as he sat down. Cecil looked surprised, but there was something calculated about it, like he’d planned exactly how far to arch his eyebrows in advance.

“Oh,” Cecil said. “I just… wasn’t feeling well. I’m alright now. I was worried, for a little while, but…” He laid his hand on the table, palm up, and smiled at the scientist. “I made it.”

Somehow, this doubled the amount of worry that Carlos was experiencing, instead of relieving it. He placed his hand lightly on top of Cecil’s, as physical contact with his boyfriend was becoming increasingly reflexive, but he did not smile back. “Good… I’m glad to see you. But like, are you sure you’re okay? If you’ve got a problem, you can tell me about it. Totally.” Now, he smiled, aiming specifically for reassurance. “I never mind listening to you.”

But Cecil, it seemed, did not have much to say on that particular subject, leaving Carlos with an uneasy feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with mushroom blood. Cecil had plenty to say about the PTA, though, and Steve Carlsberg’s flawed and treacherous involvement with it. Carlos rested his chin in his hand, and forced himself back into the moment. He nodded and offered sympathy at the right times.

* * *

 The third time Cecil’s voice did not come on the radio, it had been some time since the second, and Carlos realized he had probably categorized the incidents incorrectly. There would certainly have been times before he arrived in Night Vale that this had happened. So the third time could have been the fiftieth, for all that he knew.

On the whole, though, he had more information this time. He flipped to a clean page on his clipboard out of reflex, and began to make notes on what that information was.

_“Cecil left this morning a little before I did - early. I think he went to the radio station? I didn’t ask. He always goes to the radio station. Did he go somewhere else?”_

He stopped, tapped his pencil twice on the clipboard, and started again. Facts. Facts, remember. He would address the questions next.

_“Cecil left, like usual, but a little earlier. He didn’t say anything to me about not being on. He seemed rushed, but nothing that stood out then._

_The last time this happened, he still made it to dinner.”_

He placed the eraser against his temple, and rubbed it back and forth lightly. That was about it, at least as far as what he could say for certain. That was less than he’d thought; time for some research. He grabbed his cell phone out of his lab coat pocket, and texted, _“tried to listen to your show. missed you, sweetie. :( is everything okay?”_

After that, he went back to running experiments on a piece of rock. It hadn’t displayed any unusual properties, other than that they’d found it growing straight out of a cactus. As he worked, though, he kept jumping at phantom vibrations in his pocket, and pulling his phone out just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. A couple of hours later, he tried again.

_“honey? text me. just want to know if you’re okay. xo”_

When the day was over, and a satisfactory amount of science was done, he still hadn’t heard anything. As soon as he finished locking up the lab, he had the receiver on his ear.

 _“_ _You have reached the voicemail of Cecil Gershwin Palmer. That might seem like an easy thing to do...”_

“Hi, Ceec. It’s me. I just wanted to check in. Are you at the station? I’m heading home now, so… I’ll see you when I get there?” He hadn’t meant to put the question in his voice, but curiosity and concern blended together, and stained his voice like ink. “I love you.”

He hung up, and drove home. Cecil wasn’t there. He normally came home later - it was, after all, _good night, Night Vale_. Which was weird, given that Cecil also normally came on in the afternoon, but you had to pick your battles. Today was not a day for musing about time with so much else on his mind. Or at least, with this one major concern, hovering like that dark planet Cecil talked about sometimes.

Carlos registered this thought, and squinted at the ceiling. Now, why had he considered it that way, and why did considering it that way make his heart pause when it should have beat again?

He sent Cecil a few more texts, left another message, and even took a couple of snapchats. By then, it was dark out. The scientist thought, because that was what a scientist did. The scientist thought about going to sleep without Cecil, and he thought about rolling over in the night and eating up the entire bed in a starfish of limbs. He thought about Night Vale, strange and dangerous, molding time like putty and twisting its citizens into shadowy shapes. He thought about Cecil, smiling and laughing. And he thought about leaving things be.

He stood up and put his day lab coat back on. There was only one place he could think to look for Cecil, and if he didn’t at least try, he’d never forgive himself. 

* * *

 The radio station was dark. It loomed, and Carlos did not think it looked very friendly tonight. He stared up at it as he made his way to the entrance, until he was craning his head back at the equipment on top. There were stars above it, but the metal shining faintly under them seemed to fade into the void beyond, as if the tip reached that far.

His unease only grew as he dropped his gaze to the door. He eyed the handle, and took a Swiss army knife from his pocket. He knew the way in, but when he came with Cecil, the radio host usually handled it. Carlos offered sometimes, but Cecil gently assured him it was fine, and the scientist was too nervous to protest much.

Indeed, he decided to give it a try without the ritualistic... magic. Phenomenon. Thing. Maybe they’d forgotten to turn it on. Sometimes, people left doors unlocked. He grabbed the handle and pulled. Not only did it not budge, but it grew scalding under his palm. He sucked in a breath and let go. So, he didn’t have a choice. He hadn’t thought so.

He flicked the blade open and dug the edge just into the tip of his finger. It hardly hurt more than a papercut, but he froze for a moment with the blade inside of him. His stomach churned, and sweat dripped down the back of his neck, quickly growing clammy in the night air. He wrapped his fingers around the handle, to let the blood smear against it, and pulled again. This time, it opened, and he stepped inside.

His footsteps echoed in the empty reception area, and when he was just a few feet in, the door swung shut again with perfect horror movie timing. Carlos quirked a smile at it. So that’s how they were playing tonight? Okay.

Well, actually, it wasn’t okay at all. But he needed to find Cecil, if Cecil was even here. The only place he knew how to find was Cecil’s studio, but somehow, he worried about getting lost with every familiar turn. The hallway looked right. The potted plants, the old flyers, some scribbled in ancient, indecipherable languages. He knew where he was going, and he was going where he knew, but he was getting that feeling like he should double check Google Maps just to be safe. As if that would work inside the radio station. He was pretty sure there was lead in the paint.

You had to pick your battles, and your experiments, too.

Still, when space existed, it usually kept a fairly consistent form. Science told him that, and he trusted science wherever he was. He kept going, and found that the feeling was strongest right in front of the recording booth.

By then, he understood: he wasn’t supposed to be here. Probably, he was an outsider, more than usual. This went deeper than just what should not be public knowledge. This was not a matter of the community. It was a matter of Cecil.

He opened this door, too, without thinking further than that.


	2. The Voice

Cecil did not appear on the radio that day.

It was a shame, because he really did love his job. Few people were as lucky when it came to that, having something that they both loved and were meant to do.

He had come to the station, as always, or maybe he hadn't left the night before. Some nights, he did not leave. He spent a lot of time at the station, as long as there wasn't an event that he needed to cover elsewhere. He sat down in the studio, with every intention of broadcasting, and looked at his notes.  

There was Night Vale, too, an ever-whispering undercurrent to his thoughts, or something like that. It was what it was, until it was not that thing anymore. When it became something else, Cecil could not appear on the radio.

* * *

Cecil did not appear on the radio that day.

Time had moved on. That day was different than the one before. This time, he had not even made it to his studio. When he became aware again, he was on the couch in the break room. His hands were clutching his cell phone and his eyes were fixed on the clock, on a time he hadn’t been able to see.

_6:42. He should just be able to make it._

Still, he cursed himself, his boiling blood, his lineage - although this position had nothing to do with that - he cursed anything that might have been why he was _like this_. If he upset Carlos, what did any of it mean, anyway? His responsibilities as the Voice of Night Vale Community Radio seemed, for the first time in his life, small.

They were not, but they seemed this way. Before, he couldn’t  have pinned down a time in his life when there had been anything else. Now, his attention was halved, and he wanted to devote the whole of it to this new, shining presence in his life.

It took him a moment to regain control of his limbs, like tugging an ill-fitting suit back into place, but when he had the trick of it down, he scrambled off the couch. He wouldn’t have time to brush his teeth, or his hair, or change into the nice toga he’d picked out. But less than half an hour later, he was at the restaurant, and Carlos wasn’t there yet. He had a minute to arrange himself, to take a few deep breaths and order some wine for them and wipe his sweaty palms on his napkin repeatedly. Okay. He was good to go. _You’re on the air. Don’t mess it up._

When Carlos arrived, he took a seat, and Cecil could tell something was on his mind. The poor man usually tripped over himself to apologize for being late. Carlos had trouble remembering his engagements, but it wasn’t for lack of caring. Cecil understood this as much as it aggravated him, and just appreciated it when the Carlos called to warn him about a conflict.

Tonight, the first words out of the scientist’s mouth were, “Are you alright? I heard the thing about your show being canceled... I tried texting you.”

Cecil, somehow, stopped. He hadn’t been doing anything, and he stopped doing that to grab his napkin and wring it under the table. He absolutely did not want to talk about _that_. He couldn’t. Not with Carlos. It was something so secret they hadn’t bothered making a law forbidding anyone from talking about it. It was so secret he wasn’t sure anyone, even the City Council, really knew. He couldn’t tell Carlos, because it was weird.

“Oh… I just wasn’t feeling well. I’m alright now. I was worried, for a little while, but…” He offered Carlos a hand, hoping for the stability of touch, and nearly throwing up when he received it. He continued, “...I made it.”

One corner of Carlos’ mouth twisted up, and that, Cecil had learned, meant discontent. Carlos offered - very kindly, what a terribly kind man, oh - to listen to him. But that wasn’t how it worked. Cecil shook his head, and gave the scientist a slightly lopsided smile. “It’s fine. Really. Honestly, if there’s a _problem_ right now, it’s that, you know, Steve Carlsberg is making budgetary decisions on the PTA, and like, I get that he’s treasurer, but…”

Cecil talked, and Carlos listened. That was how it worked.

* * *

 Time continued to pass. It did this, typically. It was another day, and Cecil was not going to appear on the radio, but he didn’t know it yet.

_It looked like the Secret Police were busy. A gloved hand, a hastily written note chewed up and swallowed in desperation. Something that was not supposed to be known._

But someone had to know, or there would be no record. The nice thing was, Cecil didn’t have to stop work to jot it down. It would be in his notebook, as neat as could be, if he needed it. It was only a moment, and the moment did not belong to him, but now it could at least be said to belong to Night Vale.

He was in his studio today. He’d gone to the station a little early, so that he could get some paperwork out of the way and go home right after his show. At home, Carlos would be waiting for him. This was no longer a new part of his life, no longer a surprise, and yet he still thought it would be nice if it could happen a little sooner than it usually did. He hummed to himself, as he read over some intern applications and played Carlos’ voice in his head. _Hi, honey! How was work?_

Carlos knew how work was, for him. Carlos heard his work, and asked anyway. Cecil dropped his chin into his hand, and tossed the application aside. That one was much too wishy-washy. He needed a real go-getter, someone who could be depended upon, even when things were tough. Journalism wasn’t an easy field.

_And you are gone. Blackness, but fathomable. An ocean and not a void. That is what you are._

Cecil blinked to clear his vision of that one, as inky spots lingered in front of his eyes, like he’d been fighting off unconsciousness. He laughed to himself, and set aside another application, and thought: _and you are not a journalist, either. Sorry. You’ll just have to get college credit doing something less interesting._

He did not think: _Diane Crayton was going to the movies with her son, Josh. They would bond, have a good time, and then Josh would want to do something with his friends, after. It would be late already, and they would argue. The new bond would unravel, and they would end the evening neither closer nor farther apart than when they began._ But the scene was in his head, anyway, a preview of coming attractions.

Sometimes, Cecil did wonder if it was answering him. If it could respond to his thoughts somehow. But if so, that wasn’t a very useful comment. Diane and Josh were just as interesting in the details, in the neurons and their flashing impulses, as any star-dotted void. He’d been learning so much about the human brain lately, after all.

It all seemed to come down to data storage. A human being could only hold so much information. What did that make him?

* * *

Sometime in the afternoon, Cecil finished the paperwork. He yawned hugely, and that was about all the incentive he needed to go refill his coffee. He wrapped his fingers around the edge of the desk and tucked in his arm, all standard, simple movements. He just needed to push himself back so that he could stand. It wasn’t difficult, not for a human body.

But Cecil Palmer’s arm locked up, as the signals between nerves were cut off.

_A landscape, cool breezes blowing for years, until they left twists and hollows in the rock. A house, filled with people, pressed together by walls and bound together by sweat. There was a thundercrack, but only on the inside of his skull. At the same time, there was a gentle whispering and a chorus of angels._

_His arm jerked back again, he saw. He saw the bruises he would have later from his chair slamming into the wall, and himself, slack-jawed, and his neighbors engaged in a bloodstone ritual and a place far away that existed at the same time, and different times, where everything was red and gray. The City Council danced an intricate folk-dance on too many feet, and there were real mountains, somewhere, climbing and climbing like they wanted to poke out the stars._

It hurt him. His head. His coiling heart. This was the only part that hurt, but not the only part he wished he could change, sometimes. But he could not change, as long as his heart beat, as long as his head contained whatever made Cecil Palmer this. As long as he was himself, he could never be any one thing for long.

 _The town was founded, and the observations of this were in him. He saw them again and again, because there had to be a_ record _. A history, existing in the same space as the future, as office workers and community. Every moment of togetherness. He was all of them, and there was none of him -_

It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair. If he was made for this, if it was all foretold, why did it have to take such an awkward shape? The universe did not play nice, but this just didn’t fit him, it didn’t suit him anymore. Maybe it never had. Maybe every moment on the air was founded on a lie, that this could be right for anyone, or maybe he was just _wrong_ enough that no one else could do the job.

Cecil Palmer did not exist, because he knew too much. Cecil Palmer knew only one thing: he was going to be home late.


	3. Words Aloud

In the studio, the lights on the equipment blinked lazily on and off. They did not care about the man slumped against the chair, which in turn rested at an odd angle against the wall. They did not see, for all that they gave the appearance of watching. Only the man standing the doorway saw, and what he saw was this: the pale gleam of Cecil’s eyes, from no apparent light source, but obviously open. The unnatural stillness of his body. What he did not see: the telltale shudder of breath, or any sign of recognition.

Carlos drew closer. Each step drew on the hope of acknowledgement, and each step grew harder when that hope was not met. Cecil was so, so still. Deathly still. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be… to fit that adverb, but in Night Vale, life was in a state of flux. Maybe no more than it was anywhere else, but it still felt that way, sometimes. _Volatile_ was the scientific term. Life was volatile in Night Vale.

When he stood in front of the radio host, and still heard nothing, Carlos whispered, “Cecil?”

Cecil had seen this moment before, and he would see it again. He remembered very little, upon returning or awakening or whatever he wanted to call it - no one else could define it for him, after all - but he remembered this. He saw Carlos hours before he came, buried under a rotting corpse and someone’s idea of what the past should be. Later, he would see it again; the moment would be replayed for him.

It was the best look at his own body he’d had in a while. He didn’t like it. He saw Carlos reach out, and stop himself. So Carlos wouldn’t touch him, and Cecil had hoped it was just one of the strange hypotheticals, not a sign of reality-to-be. Or maybe he was wrong about when; maybe it was another moment entirely; maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all.

Now, though, Carlos was there, holding out a hand. His fingertips were trembling. As he leaned forward, his eyes disappeared under his bangs, and yet he looked scared. He had to be. This was frightening. Cecil had to say something, before Carlos could leave.

So Cecil opened his mouth, and too much came out. His voice, other voices, layered over each other. Fragments of reality given the form of words, all at once, from a single throat. For the first time, Cecil moved, and it was to lift a hand to his neck, his eyes wide. Carlos moved, too, resting the hovering hand from Cecil’s vision on the radio host’s upper arm.

Somewhere in that void given voice, Carlos heard an unshaped sound from the back of the throat. In the same breath, he heard a sharp, clear whisper. He heard his name.

“Cecil? It’s me. Do you need any… _What_ do you need? Can you tell me? I can… I can get you something, are you having trouble breathing, what-” _What is that?_ He almost asked, but then dammed the stream of questions by biting his tongue. Whatever it was, asking about it while it was still a present-tense moment seemed at best rude and at worst cruel. Cecil didn’t seem to be able to close his mouth now any more than he could control the sounds coming from himself, some of which were definitely not human.

Carlos straightened, looked around the studio, and walked off. He left Cecil alone, in the darkness, in the radio station that had once been his home. Now, what could he assume but that Carlos was leaving, back to the apartment that had become _their_ home. He would pack his things, maybe just move out, maybe leave Night Vale. This, Cecil saw, and no one put it in his head but himself. Right? It wasn't like he could be sure that the idea was anything but another vision.

He couldn’t even hold onto the idea for long, but it left him worse off. His heart beat that much faster and his breathing became audible, but not to anyone’s advantage. It came ragged and heavy, and left him dizzy, inviting the chaos closer. His own voices, every single one, echoed from inside of him.

The tears, he did not feel. There wasn’t enough space inside of him left undevoured. But Carlos saw them when he marched back into the room a few minutes later, carrying a stool. He set it down in front of the chair, tucked his lab coat under him, and took a seat. Once again, the radio host had become unresponsive, but Carlos leaned forward and took his free hand, anyway. He tugged carefully, and when there was no resistance, he placed the hand in his own lap.

He rubbed his thumb over Cecil’s palm, and then, after some careful consideration, reached forward again and gently nudged his boyfriend’s mouth closed. That seemed like something that could give a person a sore throat later, and they’d probably have enough to deal with. His unshakable feeling that he was intruding had been replaced by the certainty of that fact.

Cecil went silent, and Carlos kissed his hand. After the quiet had time to pool around them, the scientist cast ripples through it with soft words. “I’m… I’m here. I don’t know if that makes it worse, or better, or anything. I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if it’s okay. But I’m here. I want you to know that.”

He looked at the lines on Cecil’s palm as he traced them his his thumb tip. Some people believed that you could derive meaning from those lines, like you could from letters or symbols. It wasn’t very scientific. But maybe he could create some meaning there now, and send a message that words could not. He kissed Cecil’s hand again, and let the silence rest again. If the output was any indication, Cecil didn’t need any more sensory input.

* * *

All things end, eventually. One day, the two of them would end. Cecil, thankfully, had not seen it, not this time.

Now, they were at the end of a day, and Cecil had not appeared on the radio. There was pus leaking down the inside of his spine. There was always drainage, the lingering shade of the world’s deep corners and the imprint of brilliant light. Tonight, these were joined by the dry crust of tears. The first thing he did consciously was to close his eyes. The second thing he did was to clutch Carlos’ hand. The third thing he did was just to feel, to enjoy the scientist’s warm fingers squeezing back.

Carlos said, “I missed you today.”

Cecil nodded. Carlos squeezed his hand again, and twisted his grip to twine their fingers together. The radio host, once again, offered no resistance, but did nothing further. He still seemed, in scientific terms, really out of it.

Carlos frowned. There were many responses available. Once again, “what was that?” presented itself as a candidate. Also, “are you okay?” But the answer to that seemed obvious, and he didn’t want to ask too many questions, probably.

Actually, he wanted to ask so many questions. But that probably wouldn’t be good for Cecil, and Carlos needed to remember that.

“Let me take you home…” Carlos hopped off the stool and offered Cecil a hand again. “Can you stand? Is there anything you want me to grab?”

So much for no questions. He added quickly, “Or, well, we can always pick things up later. Let’s go home, Ceec.”

“I’m sorry,” Cecil said hoarsely.

“You’re… Ah. I see.” Carlos, in fact, had many responses available to that, too. He should probably have chosen better. “Listen. Don’t… assign blame. Don’t do that. That’s unhelpful, especially to yourself, and right now I think we should focus on helping you.”

This time, he just bent down and took the radio host under his arms. Carlos tugged, and as he’d hoped, the motion was enough to shake Cecil out of his fugue somewhat. This had an advantage, namely, that Cecil was indeed able to take most of his own weight. It also had a disadvantage.

Cecil shivered, and leaned heavily on the scientist. “Carlos. Carlos? Why are you here? Why? Oh, gods...”

This time, Carlos did not have to choose what to say. There was only one honest answer. “I was worried about you, Cecil. Come on…”

As they left, Carlos tried to watch the way forward and his boyfriend at the same time, but it had mixed results. Specifically, he nearly ran them both into a few corners. When it became clear Cecil wasn’t in danger of immediately collapsing, he settled for peripheral observation instead.

For the most part, Cecil kept his thoughts to himself, but soon enough, he was walking straighter. He took his arm out of Carlos’, and then pulled his hand away, too. He walked with clear eyes and his arms wrapped around himself.

Carlos grabbed his own elbow, rather than letting his hand dangle. If that was what Cecil wanted, now that he was coherent enough, then he would respect that desire. And yet, he had to wonder if maybe, this time, he’d pushed too far. If he’d stuck his nose into something that wasn’t scientific at all, just a secret Cecil had wanted to keep. He might have just ruined everything in trying to help.

* * *

When they got home, Cecil headed to bed immediately. He had always done this, but it had never been a shared bed before. He did not sleep. He had never done that, but he had always been alone in his restlessness before. Now, the soft weight of his boyfriend shifted occasionally on the mattress beside him.

Cecil stayed curled away from Carlos, and did not say anything. He let his mind consume him again, this time with half-dreams of touches and words that he didn’t know if he’d hear again. He remembered, of course: _I was just worried about you._ That was nice. He wondered how long it would be true. Maybe a little longer, if he tried to patch things up now.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. His voice was steady now. He sounded like himself again, whatever that meant.

Carlos was leaning against the headboard. He looked down at Cecil for a length of time that the radio host, at least, found uncomfortable. Finally, Carlos said, “Okay. Now. Now, I am going to ask you this, Cecil. Why are you sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to drag you out there at night. And I never… never, ever wanted you to see… that. To see me like that.”

“Then I think I’m the one who should be sorry for interrupting.”

“You didn’t interrupt. You couldn’t. Some things cannot be stopped,” Cecil corrected. He sounded too tired for this to be ominous. “And it will happen again, Carlos. It has happened before, and it will happen again and again and again…”

“Is it like - oh, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but - is it like…” Carlos shook his head. “No. What is it?”

This time, Cecil let a pause grow between them. He fidgeted, as if he could instead tease the silence like putty, and then he said, “It is a part of what I am.”

“Oh. But you’re-” Carlos frowned, and tilted his head to one side. The way his hair flopped just so tugged at Cecil’s heart. He may not have been perfect, but he was such a good man. And he was about to learn what Cecil wasn’t. The scientist concluded, “No, I shouldn’t make assumptions. That’s rude. What are you?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t think I’m quite human.” He shook his hand free, and set it clenched tightly on his lap. “I’m sorry.”

“You are sorry. But I still don’t understand. I mean, I understand that you are sorry, but still, nothing you’ve said so far explains why. Not in a way that makes sense to me? It must make sense to you. You don’t have to explain it right now, if you don’t want to, but, I mean...” Carlos stared at Cecil’s hand, twisting in the sheets, and then he lay down next to Cecil and reached an arm around to thread his fingers through his boyfriend’s. Cecil did not pull away, and Carlos continued, “Of course, you’re human. You’ve got the right anatomy, as well as the mental and emotional capacity. So why would you apologize for being something else?”

Cecil wanted to lie. He really did, and it would have been easy. He could deflect, and he could twist information. And yet, with Carlos pressed up against him, saying anything other than what he was thinking would have been cruel. He still wanted to, just as much as he had already decided not to.

He said, “No. I don’t have that. The right _stuff_ . I’ve got something _else_. I don’t even know what it is. I’ve never thought about it before, and I don’t - I don’t want to think about it again. But it’s not human, whatever it is, and...”

“And?”

“And? And? Carlos, do you understand - No, you don’t, you just said that.” Cecil pressed his face into the pillow and groaned. “I should never have… done this.”

“Done _what_?” The emphasis was subtle, not exasperated or irritated, but tense. Carlos moved their hands together, pressing his fingertips against Cecil’s chest, and waited for an answer.

“This whole thing. This whole… us. It’s not fair to you. You deserve someone. What if you don’t want… something else?”

“You mean, if I don’t want you,” Carlos said, voicing his immediate interpretation before he could exactly process the information. With that, though, it clicked. The apologies. The regret, and the frantic overtones of it. Now, he understood.

“Yes,” Cecil said gravely.

Carlos’ face scrunched up oddly, and then he shook his head and, impossibly, laughed. Only it wasn’t impossible, because there he was, chuckling. He said, “Stop being a goof.”

“What?”

Carlos smiled. Nervous, small, as if he worried about undermining the seriousness of the situation. He did. And yet sometimes, the only way to remove a weight on the heart was to lift it bodily and throw it somewhere else.

“Yeah. You goof...  It’s okay if you don’t know what you are. Or if human isn’t all you are. That doesn’t mean you’re not human - and worrying about whether you’re human or not is like, such a human thing to worry about, you know? Also, like, whatever you are is really nice, so even if that wasn’t human, even if there’s more to you… That’s just more for me to learn about, you know? And I love...” He stopped, twisting his free hand into the collar of his lab coat, and coughed. “Anyway, what matters is this: I love all… well, most… of whatever it is you are. I love you. I do not love a… a radio host, or the Voice of Night Vale. I love Cecil Palmer. My Ceec. Okay?”

“I love you, too,” Cecil said, relying on reflex. “That. That is okay. That is so much more than okay. Oh…”

Immediate acceptance, without any stated conditions, was not what Cecil had expected. At least he could trust that; Carlos was nothing if not frank about his perceived reality. So caught up in his own head, he’d forgotten that there might be other options but the worst. Carlos, however, only had one issue to raise.

“I… kind of wished you’d told me? I don’t blame you for not or anything, that doesn’t seem easy to talk about, but like… It also doesn’t seem easy to go through. I could’ve at least come to pick you up if I’d known. Were you really in a good state to drive?” The scientist leaned over him further, so Cecil could catch the scientist’s disapproval from the corner of his eyes.

“Probably not. But I manage…” He sighed. “I don’t… I mean, you’ve already seen it. If you wanted to come, that might be… nice. It might be nice, to not be alone, or to have the impression of not being alone.” He grimaced. “I also have _no idea_ when it’s going to happen, though. So. I’ll try to text you when I’m, uh, done. If that works? Does that work? I think that would work.”

“That’s fine. I’d like that. If you don’t mind-” He stopped, and lifted an index finger like a symbolic light bulb. “Oh! Hold on. I’ll know if you don’t come on the radio. Unless it happens on your day off or something, but then, we can probably handle that together anyway. If you don’t mind that. Or you can just text me.”

“I don’t mind. Not really. Um. Although…”

“Yes, honey?”

“What I do mind… Next time, don’t… leave without saying anything. Please. My awareness-” _Consciousness. Sentience?_ “...is limited, but not gone. And I thought you were leaving. I mean. I thought you were - You know.”

“Oh! Oh, honey, Ceec, I’m sorry!” He kissed Cecil on the forehead, to reinforce the fact that he didn’t intend to leave now, and never had. “I won’t, I promise. I’ll make sure to tell you what I’m doing.”

Cecil swallowed, and suddenly felt that gravity had abandoned him, or perhaps something had hollowed out his limbs. The lightness was almost unbearable, compared to just moment ago. Carlos didn’t mind. Carlos cared, but only in the sense that he valued Cecil’s wellbeing. Carlos hardly cared at all about everything he’d ever been - the Voice of Night Vale, the glue of his community, but he did love what Cecil was. Even if that was a nebulous thing.

In this lightness, Cecil could not stay still. He turned over, took Carlos’ face in both hands, and kissed him. Carlos made a soft noise of surprise, which became an odd, happy little trill. Cecil laughed, and Carlos leaned his forehead against the other man’s. “That’s a very human gesture, too.”

“So there must be something in there.”

“Correct. There’s plenty in you. A lot of it is squishy and I think sort of red? I don’t know, I’ve only seen pictures, and you can’t always trust those. And if there’s one thing I’m not really planning to run experiments on, it’s that. But some of what’s in you, in particular, is also the sweetest, most enthusiastic dork I’ve ever had the pleasure of dating.”

“Oh, _gosh_ , Carlos!” Cecil pressed his face into the pillow.

“I’m here for you,” added the scientist, more softly and with a kiss on the cheek for emphasis. “And I am definitely not going anywhere.”

“Well… Thank you.” Cecil sighed quietly, dreamily. “I would have missed you…”

“Then we’ll keep that possibility strictly hypothetical.”

Cecil nodded, and buried his face in Carlos’ chest this time. The fabric of his shirt was warm from the skin underneath, and the skin was solid over layers of muscle and skin and fat. Cecil held Carlos and felt more attached to him, and their shared moment in time and space, than he had toward anything else that he could recall.  
  
He felt like himself, and he wasn’t particularly worried about what that meant. He’d figure it out, or not. There were other constants in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, to elaborate on the headcanon: it always seems to me that Cecil is getting snippets or flashes of things? Things around town and other visions that make up some of the stranger reports. He can't control them and he doesn't get everything - hence the need for legwork and interns - but he usually gets enough.
> 
> I wonder, though, if he wouldn't sometimes get too much? If the boundaries would blur or break, and he'd just get... overwhelmed with information. This was my effort to write out that scenario.


End file.
